Lazybones
Adventurer
Verbatim: don't know if you have the module, but the monk was named "Socrates" in the original, which I didn't like for reasons I've stated earlier, so I changed it. His two "brothers" were just a play on the whole backwards-names thing. I figured you guys would catch that. 
And Varo's still only 8th; his "price" for the Oracle's wisdom was a negative level. We'll see what he learned a bit later in the story.
* * * * *
Chapter 69
KUPRA
“By all the gods,” Allera said, shoving past Talen into the already crowded room. “Dar, let her go!”
“Like hell,” he said. “I’ll handle this, healer.”
“Like hell,” she shot back, stepping up until she was literally a few inches from his arm. “If you want to get healed the next time you get carved up into bloody mash, you’ll let her go, right this instant.”
“She’s danger—”
“You can stand in the doorway. Look, she isn’t going anywhere, all right? Do you think she’d have hidden under the bed, if there was anywhere else she could have gone? Now, let her go. Now.”
Dar held the healer’s stare for a long second, then turned and in disgust released his prisoner. The woman sagged to the ground, gasping for air. She tried to retreat when Allera reached for her, nearly tripping over the overturned bed.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the healer said, her voice calm and level. “I’m Allera. You’re Kupra, right?”
“How do you know my name?” the woman managed to wheeze.
“Not from Banth. He’s dead, Kupra.”
The young woman looked up at her. “No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yes, Kupra. We killed him, but only because we had to. He was mad, Kupra, and evil. But I don’t think you’re like him.”
“Dead...”
“Yeah, poked full of more holes than a pincushion,” Dar said, from the doorway. “I can drag the corpse in here, if you want.”
Allera shot him a look that held daggers, then turned back to Kupra. “It’s true. He’s dead.”
The woman started crying, and fell into Allera’s embrace, her whole body shaking as the sobs overcame her. “It’s all right,” Allera said, stroking the woman’s uneven hair. “It’s all right.”
Talen took Dar’s arm. “Leave her alone for a few minutes,” he said.
“You’re entirely too willing to trust, captain,” Dar said quietly, as they drew back out of the doorway into the larger room outside.
“And you’re too willing to condemn. Let Allera have a chance; we need allies far more than we need enemies.”
“You’d trust her as an ally?”
“I’d see what information she could give us, and weigh it according to the context of the situation. And keep my eyes open for betrayal. I’m not paranoid, but I’m not a fool, mercenary.”
“I guess we’ll have to see if that’s true,” Dar said, walking away.
Allera remained inside with their prisoner for a good ten minutes, with Varo keeping a close eye on the interview from just outside the doorway. Finally, the healer brought the apprentice mage out. She looked awful, with red eyes and a blotch where a bruise had grown around her right eye. They could also see red marks around her throat where Dar had grabbed her. She stood against Allera as if the healer was a supporting wall.
“Kupra will help us, if we bring her with us when we depart,” Allera said. “She just wants to leave this place.”
“Yeah, fat chance of that,” Dar said. “That’s been our plan as well, and how well has it worked out for us?”
“She knows a way out,” Allera said.
That got everyone’s attention immediately.
* * * * *
Kupra was able to share a great deal of information about her former master.
She showed them where to find the secret door that led to Banth’s laboratory. Scattered about on shelves, tables, and wooden racks was a very thorough collection of alchemical ingredients, tools, and leather-bound tomes. They also found numerous body parts and other pieces of “failed” experiments. Kupra described some of those to the companions in a cold, lifeless tone of voice, as if she were relating things that someone else had seen, rather than she.
A door off the laboratory led to a spartan bedchamber that had clearly belonged to the dead wizard. Bookshelves lined the walls, and in addition to a bed and desk, there was a large brazier of ancient bronze on an iron stand in the center of the room. Oil lamps, most currently unlit, dangled from iron chains around the perimeter of the chamber.
Varo examined the brazier, and the contents of an empty jar he found lying beside it. “This device is magical,” he said finally. “I believe that the wizard used this to summon the elemental we battled. Do you know the command words?” he asked Kupra.
The apprentice nodded faintly.
“There is a good deal of power and wealth here,” Varo said. “We should search it carefully before we depart.”
“Yeah, whatever, I want to hear about the way out,” Dar said. He turned to Kupra, but the woman drew back in terror as he looked at her. Exasperated, he turned to Allera. “Get her to tell us about the exit.”
With some prodding, Allera got the woman to reveal what she knew. There was an exit beyond a secret door in the exit to the wight catacombs, she told them. It was warded by a hive of giant bees, but beyond that was a shaft that led straight to the surface.
“That buzzing I heard, in the passage,” Talen said.
“If only you’d found the door, we might have avoided that bastard mage altogether,” Dar said.
“Now that we know the way out, we should leave this place,” Setarcos said.
“Not yet,” Varo and Allera said almost as one. The cleric nodded to the healer. “We should rest first,” Allera said. “And then I will use my magic to speak to the tiger, and see if I can help her and her cubs.”
“This place does seem to be rather secure,” Varo added. “And I would like some more time to go through the wizard’s effects.”
“Bah, magic mumbo-jumbo,” Dar said. “The man was cracked, that much is easy to see. What do you expect to learn from his crap?”
“We will see,” Varo said enigmatically.
They attended to a few things before turning to rest. True to her word, Allera helped Dar and Talen kill the tormented mutations in Banth’s “storage room”. Afterwards, she went off alone, and refused to let any of the others come with her, even to watch over her. She returned an hour later, and fed the dire tiger.
Varo spent the time reviewing Banth’s library and collection of alchemical materials. He kept Kupra with him, to provide direction and explanation of his finds. She was able to direct the cleric to the transmuter’s spellbooks, which he packed into two large travel bags. He kept the apprentice’s smaller book separate, but did not return it to her for now.
Talen and Setarcos made a thorough search of the complex, to verify that there weren’t any other ways in and out other than the main corridor. They did find a pit in the outer hall that nearly captured Setarcos, but the old monk was able to leap free before gravity drew him in. They marked its location carefully and continued their search.
Once they were reasonable sure that the complex was secure, they let Allera and Varo rest in Banth’s quarters. Kupra was given a few blankets as well, but the men agreed that she should be bound. Talen tied her wrists behind her back, and attached them to one of the larger bookshelves. The apprentice accepted the treatment mutely, offering no resistance.
Dar and Talen took shifts watching and resting. Although they didn’t say anything, neither was quite ready to put full trust in Setarcos either, for all the old man’s apparently benign nature. The monk did not complain, sitting on the floor of Banth’s bedchamber in a meditative pose.
Time passed without incident. Allera and Varo recovered their spells; the group enjoyed a meal from Banth’s undistinguished larder. After treating what injuries remained from the previous day, Allera said that she was ready to deal with the dire tiger.
“What do you want us to do?” Talen asked.
“Open the secret door to the outer complex. Then come back to the laboratory, and stay there until I return.”
“What?” Dar asked. “You mean you’re going to open the cage, with you in there alone? What if it attacks you?”
“If it intends to attack me, I won’t open the cage,” Allera explained patiently, as if to a child.
“How in the hells are you going to know whether it intends to attack you?” Dar returned.
“I can use my magic to communicate with it.”
“Yeah, what if it lies? Maybe it says, ‘Oh, sure, I’d love to get out of this cage, I won’t hurt you,’ and then when you open it, it yells, ‘SUCKER’, and then eats you?”
“Animals are less duplicitous than humans,” Allera said. “In any case, it is a risk that I intend to take.”
“We should at least be in the room. If it decides to make a snack of you, at least we can—”
“No. As I promised Talen, I will not risk the group. I will cast my sanctuary spell, just in case the creature becomes a threat. I also have the ability to calm emotions... but if you are all there, it may agitate the creature beyond my powers to control it.”
“We will wait in the adjacent hall, with the door open,” Talen said. “If something should go wrong, we will come to your aid.”
“Very well.”
They made their way out to the cage room. Talen and Dar headed out to open the exits, then returned to the hall beyond the secret door to the lab. They lingered there as Allera knelt beside the cage in the floor, and looked down at the huge tiger.
The creature was magnificent, even in its current state. She could see its ribs through the tattered hide loosely covering its body. Its cubs prowled through the muck, mewling.
Sensing her, the tiger lifted its head—clearly taking an effort—and growled. The sound rumbled in its body like an earthquake.
Allera opened her mind to her magic, and reached out to the creature.
Ah, right, I'd forgotten to update those. I'll post there next. I made a few changes here and there as the story went on, so if you see any obvious errors, post in the Rogues' Gallery thread.CrusadeDave said:
And Varo's still only 8th; his "price" for the Oracle's wisdom was a negative level. We'll see what he learned a bit later in the story.
* * * * *
Chapter 69
KUPRA
“By all the gods,” Allera said, shoving past Talen into the already crowded room. “Dar, let her go!”
“Like hell,” he said. “I’ll handle this, healer.”
“Like hell,” she shot back, stepping up until she was literally a few inches from his arm. “If you want to get healed the next time you get carved up into bloody mash, you’ll let her go, right this instant.”
“She’s danger—”
“You can stand in the doorway. Look, she isn’t going anywhere, all right? Do you think she’d have hidden under the bed, if there was anywhere else she could have gone? Now, let her go. Now.”
Dar held the healer’s stare for a long second, then turned and in disgust released his prisoner. The woman sagged to the ground, gasping for air. She tried to retreat when Allera reached for her, nearly tripping over the overturned bed.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the healer said, her voice calm and level. “I’m Allera. You’re Kupra, right?”
“How do you know my name?” the woman managed to wheeze.
“Not from Banth. He’s dead, Kupra.”
The young woman looked up at her. “No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yes, Kupra. We killed him, but only because we had to. He was mad, Kupra, and evil. But I don’t think you’re like him.”
“Dead...”
“Yeah, poked full of more holes than a pincushion,” Dar said, from the doorway. “I can drag the corpse in here, if you want.”
Allera shot him a look that held daggers, then turned back to Kupra. “It’s true. He’s dead.”
The woman started crying, and fell into Allera’s embrace, her whole body shaking as the sobs overcame her. “It’s all right,” Allera said, stroking the woman’s uneven hair. “It’s all right.”
Talen took Dar’s arm. “Leave her alone for a few minutes,” he said.
“You’re entirely too willing to trust, captain,” Dar said quietly, as they drew back out of the doorway into the larger room outside.
“And you’re too willing to condemn. Let Allera have a chance; we need allies far more than we need enemies.”
“You’d trust her as an ally?”
“I’d see what information she could give us, and weigh it according to the context of the situation. And keep my eyes open for betrayal. I’m not paranoid, but I’m not a fool, mercenary.”
“I guess we’ll have to see if that’s true,” Dar said, walking away.
Allera remained inside with their prisoner for a good ten minutes, with Varo keeping a close eye on the interview from just outside the doorway. Finally, the healer brought the apprentice mage out. She looked awful, with red eyes and a blotch where a bruise had grown around her right eye. They could also see red marks around her throat where Dar had grabbed her. She stood against Allera as if the healer was a supporting wall.
“Kupra will help us, if we bring her with us when we depart,” Allera said. “She just wants to leave this place.”
“Yeah, fat chance of that,” Dar said. “That’s been our plan as well, and how well has it worked out for us?”
“She knows a way out,” Allera said.
That got everyone’s attention immediately.
* * * * *
Kupra was able to share a great deal of information about her former master.
She showed them where to find the secret door that led to Banth’s laboratory. Scattered about on shelves, tables, and wooden racks was a very thorough collection of alchemical ingredients, tools, and leather-bound tomes. They also found numerous body parts and other pieces of “failed” experiments. Kupra described some of those to the companions in a cold, lifeless tone of voice, as if she were relating things that someone else had seen, rather than she.
A door off the laboratory led to a spartan bedchamber that had clearly belonged to the dead wizard. Bookshelves lined the walls, and in addition to a bed and desk, there was a large brazier of ancient bronze on an iron stand in the center of the room. Oil lamps, most currently unlit, dangled from iron chains around the perimeter of the chamber.
Varo examined the brazier, and the contents of an empty jar he found lying beside it. “This device is magical,” he said finally. “I believe that the wizard used this to summon the elemental we battled. Do you know the command words?” he asked Kupra.
The apprentice nodded faintly.
“There is a good deal of power and wealth here,” Varo said. “We should search it carefully before we depart.”
“Yeah, whatever, I want to hear about the way out,” Dar said. He turned to Kupra, but the woman drew back in terror as he looked at her. Exasperated, he turned to Allera. “Get her to tell us about the exit.”
With some prodding, Allera got the woman to reveal what she knew. There was an exit beyond a secret door in the exit to the wight catacombs, she told them. It was warded by a hive of giant bees, but beyond that was a shaft that led straight to the surface.
“That buzzing I heard, in the passage,” Talen said.
“If only you’d found the door, we might have avoided that bastard mage altogether,” Dar said.
“Now that we know the way out, we should leave this place,” Setarcos said.
“Not yet,” Varo and Allera said almost as one. The cleric nodded to the healer. “We should rest first,” Allera said. “And then I will use my magic to speak to the tiger, and see if I can help her and her cubs.”
“This place does seem to be rather secure,” Varo added. “And I would like some more time to go through the wizard’s effects.”
“Bah, magic mumbo-jumbo,” Dar said. “The man was cracked, that much is easy to see. What do you expect to learn from his crap?”
“We will see,” Varo said enigmatically.
They attended to a few things before turning to rest. True to her word, Allera helped Dar and Talen kill the tormented mutations in Banth’s “storage room”. Afterwards, she went off alone, and refused to let any of the others come with her, even to watch over her. She returned an hour later, and fed the dire tiger.
Varo spent the time reviewing Banth’s library and collection of alchemical materials. He kept Kupra with him, to provide direction and explanation of his finds. She was able to direct the cleric to the transmuter’s spellbooks, which he packed into two large travel bags. He kept the apprentice’s smaller book separate, but did not return it to her for now.
Talen and Setarcos made a thorough search of the complex, to verify that there weren’t any other ways in and out other than the main corridor. They did find a pit in the outer hall that nearly captured Setarcos, but the old monk was able to leap free before gravity drew him in. They marked its location carefully and continued their search.
Once they were reasonable sure that the complex was secure, they let Allera and Varo rest in Banth’s quarters. Kupra was given a few blankets as well, but the men agreed that she should be bound. Talen tied her wrists behind her back, and attached them to one of the larger bookshelves. The apprentice accepted the treatment mutely, offering no resistance.
Dar and Talen took shifts watching and resting. Although they didn’t say anything, neither was quite ready to put full trust in Setarcos either, for all the old man’s apparently benign nature. The monk did not complain, sitting on the floor of Banth’s bedchamber in a meditative pose.
Time passed without incident. Allera and Varo recovered their spells; the group enjoyed a meal from Banth’s undistinguished larder. After treating what injuries remained from the previous day, Allera said that she was ready to deal with the dire tiger.
“What do you want us to do?” Talen asked.
“Open the secret door to the outer complex. Then come back to the laboratory, and stay there until I return.”
“What?” Dar asked. “You mean you’re going to open the cage, with you in there alone? What if it attacks you?”
“If it intends to attack me, I won’t open the cage,” Allera explained patiently, as if to a child.
“How in the hells are you going to know whether it intends to attack you?” Dar returned.
“I can use my magic to communicate with it.”
“Yeah, what if it lies? Maybe it says, ‘Oh, sure, I’d love to get out of this cage, I won’t hurt you,’ and then when you open it, it yells, ‘SUCKER’, and then eats you?”
“Animals are less duplicitous than humans,” Allera said. “In any case, it is a risk that I intend to take.”
“We should at least be in the room. If it decides to make a snack of you, at least we can—”
“No. As I promised Talen, I will not risk the group. I will cast my sanctuary spell, just in case the creature becomes a threat. I also have the ability to calm emotions... but if you are all there, it may agitate the creature beyond my powers to control it.”
“We will wait in the adjacent hall, with the door open,” Talen said. “If something should go wrong, we will come to your aid.”
“Very well.”
They made their way out to the cage room. Talen and Dar headed out to open the exits, then returned to the hall beyond the secret door to the lab. They lingered there as Allera knelt beside the cage in the floor, and looked down at the huge tiger.
The creature was magnificent, even in its current state. She could see its ribs through the tattered hide loosely covering its body. Its cubs prowled through the muck, mewling.
Sensing her, the tiger lifted its head—clearly taking an effort—and growled. The sound rumbled in its body like an earthquake.
Allera opened her mind to her magic, and reached out to the creature.
